75 comments:

The raid in Yemen that went pear shaped on Saturday was originally planned under the Obama administration. However, they were unable to complete their detailed assessment before Obama left office. Then Trump and his team took over and—apparently—decided to speed things up:

Mr. Trump’s new national security team, led by Mr. Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired general with experience in counterterrorism raids, has said that it wants to speed the decision-making when it comes to such strikes, delegating more power to lower-level officials so that the military may respond more quickly. Indeed, the Pentagon is drafting such plans to accelerate activities against the Qaeda branch in Yemen.

That's the New York Times. Here's the Washington Post on the same subject:

“We expect an easier approval cycle [for operations] under this administration,” another defense official said...“We really struggled with getting the [Obama] White House comfortable with getting boots on the ground in Yemen,” the former official said. “Since the new administration has come in, the approvals [at the Pentagon] appear to have gone up.”

And here is Reuters:

U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations. As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.

Reading between the lines, Trump figured that Obama was a wuss and spent too much time over-litigating this stuff. He wanted action, so he approved the mission. It went badly, and now military officials are blaming Trump, telling reporters that he went ahead "without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations."

Is that really what happened? Or is the Pentagon throwing Trump under the bus for a failure that's their fault? I suppose we might find out if Congress decided to investigate, but that would be out of character for them. After all, Congress rarely spends its time holding contentious hearings about missions in dangerous parts of the world that go south and get people killed. I can't think of one recently, anyway.

Jul, 2015. While illegal immigrants account for about 3.5 percent of the U.S population, they represented 36.7 percent of federal sentences in FY 2014 following criminal convictions, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data "

All those that believe like UCLA Barbie and other stupid liberals, well, here you go, you're wrong, in many cases Dead Wrong.

The truth coming out about that operation in yemen that killed the Navy seal. It was an op that was planned, vetted and approved by the obama admin. They were just waiting for the next moonless night, which came around tge first week of Trump's presidency.

Apparently some in CENTCOM are trying to shift the blame for the outcome of the raid onto Donald Trump. How, you’d have every reason to ask, can the president be held responsible for a raid planned and coordinated by a combat unit. Easy: Trump Sucks.

U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.

As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.…One of the three U.S. officials said on-the-ground surveillance of the compound was “minimal, at best.”

“The decision was made … to leave it to the incoming administration, partly in the hope that more and better intelligence could be collected,” that official said.

No. F*** no. You can’t say that and not have to mail in your man-card.

As a combat arms officer I find this appalling. The basic rule of military command is that a unit commander is responsible for everything the unit does or fails to do. The fault, if there is any, for this mission lies squarely on the planning staff that produced the operation order and the unit commander. The buck stops there. Right there. Intelligence in combat operations is never absolute and it is never perfect. If that is your metric then you shouldn’t be involved in combat operations. At some point a decision has to be reached that the mission outcome is either worth the risk or not worth the risk. That risk assessment is not made by the president.

During the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson was ridiculed for choosing targets for airstrikes himself. And rightfully so. If a president has time to get involved planning airstrikes it means that all the big problems of the nation has been solved. There hasn’t been a commander-in-chief since Dwight Eisenhower who had the ability to contribute to military operational planning in any meaningful way.

Over the past eight years we have seen the president, as personified by Obama, acting as an overpaid squad leader. There is no logical reason for a president to personally give the order to kill a couple of Somali pirates. There is no logical reason for the president to be in the loop for approving drone strikes. Not only is it a stupid way to run a military operation it is profoundly stupid politics. But it does allow the most effeminate and unmanly creature to ever occupy the Oval Office to boast about his toughness in killing people… so there is that.

Has our military really been so corrupted under eight years of Obama that it is unable to plan a mission without presidential guidance or accept responsibility for its outcome? Have we become so degraded in our military capacity that the on-the-ground commander relies on the president of the United States to spot flaws in his plan?

If there is an operation that requires the “president-in-the-loop” option, his job is certainly not to catch planning deficiencies like poor intelligence or lack of contingency planning. His job is to give a GO/NO GO decision based on the military advice he has received. Ultimate responsibility is Trump’s because he is the commander-in-chief, but the blame for planning deficiencies rests entirely at CENTCOM and lower levels.

I have gotten to the point where I actually do not believe most of these stories are even true. When you get down to the meat and potatoes of the facts it's never quite like the story, much less the headline.

There was a raid.An American was killed.An eight year old "human shield" was killed.

That's what we "know" as fact.

Now given it's the job of every military commander to make determinations on what worked, what didn't, what they would do again, and what they might to differently... it's probably a fair bet to say that there was a variety of opinions on this particular raid that likely went from considering it a fairly well drawn out success, to those who thought it was not so successful, and that there was discussion about it.

Above and beyond that is probably 99% speculation based on the bias and imagination of the reporter writing the story... with the other 1% coming from something tangible someone told them.

With any military operation... think of the degree of planning and to what degree of importance there would have to be, before it actually came up for top military leaders to actually go to the President for an authorization. It would have to be highly vetted and highly recommended up the chain of command, from the planners of the small details, to the people in middle command, to those in upper command to those top Military brass who actually talk to the President. Does anyone really think this is a top down decision where the President randomly points at a spot on the map and says "now go kill some people there". They make a call (yes or no) based on the opinions of those who are working on this...

(a) Establishment; presiding officer; functions; compositionThere is established a council to be known as the National Security Council (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “Council”).The President of the United States shall preside over meetings of the Council: Provided, That in his absence he may designate a member of the Council to preside in his place.The function of the Council shall be to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and the other departments and agencies of the Government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security.The Council shall be composed of—(1) the President;(2) the Vice President;(3) the Secretary of State;(4) the Secretary of Defense;(5) the Secretary of Energy; and(6) the Secretaries and Under Secretaries of other executive departments and of the military departments, when appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to serve at his pleasure.

Physicist Stephen Hawking has warned humanity that we probably only have about 1,000 years left on Earth, and the only thing that could save us from certain extinction is setting up colonies elsewhere in the Solar System.

"[W]e must ... continue to go into space for the future of humanity," Hawking said in a lecture at the University of Cambridge this week. "I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet."

The fate of humanity appears to have been weighing heavily on Hawking of late - he’s also recently cautioned that artificial intelligence (AI) will be "either the best, or the worst, thing ever to happen to humanity".

Given that humans are prone to making the same mistakes over and over again - even though we’re obsessed with our own history and should know better - Hawking suspects that "powerful autonomous weapons” could have serious consequences for humanity.

As Heather Saul from The Independent reports, Hawking has estimated that self-sustaining human colonies on Mars are not going to be a viable option for another 100 years or so, which means we need to be "very careful" in the coming decades.

Without even taking into account the potentially devastating effects of climate change, global pandemics brought on by antibiotic resistance, and nuclear capabilities of warring nations, we could soon be sparring with the kinds of enemies we’re not even close to knowing how to deal with.

Late last year, Hawking added his name to a coalition of more than 20,000 researchers and experts, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Noam Chomsky, calling for a ban on anyone developing autonomous weapons that can fire on targets without human intervention.

As the founders of OpenAI, Musk’s new research initiative dedicated to the ethics of artificial intelligence, said last year, our robots are perfectly submissive now, but what happens when we remove one too many restrictions?

What happens when you make them so perfect, they’re just like humans, but better, just like we've always wanted?

"It seems that we'll keep whittling away at their constraints, and in the extreme case they will reach human performance on virtually every intellectual task. It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly."

And that’s not even the half of it.

Imagine we’re dealing with unruly robots that are so much smarter and so much stronger than us, and suddenly, we get the announcement - aliens have picked up on the signals we’ve been blasting out into the Universe and made contract.

Great news, right? Well, think about it for a minute. In the coming decades, Earth and humanity isn’t going to look so crash-hot.

We’ll be struggling to mitigate the effects of climate change, which means we'll be running out of land to grow crops, our coasts will be disappearing, and anything edible in the sea is probably being cooked by the rapidly rising temperatures.

If the aliens are aggressive, they’ll see a weakened enemy with a habitable planet that’s ripe for the taking. And even if they’re non-aggressive, we humans certainly are, so we’ll probably try to get a share of what they’ve got, and oops: alien wars.

As Hawking says in his new online film, Stephen Hawking’s Favourite Places, "I am more convinced than ever that we are not alone," but if the aliens are finding us, "they will be vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria".

Clearly, we need a back-up plan, which is why Hawking's 1,000-year deadline to destruction comes with a caveat - we might be able to survive our mistakes if we have somewhere else in the Solar System to jettison ourselves to.

That all might sound pretty dire, but Hawking says we still have a whole lot to feel optimistic about, describing 2016 as a "glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics".

While John Oliver might disagree that there's anything good about 2016 at all, Hawking says we need to "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet."

"Try to make sense of what you see, wonder about what makes the Universe exist. Be curious," he told students at the Cambridge lecture. "However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up."

Roger Amick said...Physicist Stephen Hawking has warned humanity that we probably only have about 1,000 years left on Earth_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Imagine we’re dealing with unruly robots that are so much smarter and so much stronger than us, and suddenly, we get the announcement - aliens have picked up on the signals we’ve been blasting out into the Universe and made contract._________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

well at that point i'd expect someone to pick up the phone and call sarah conner so her kid can stop it all from happening.

I have gotten to the point where I actually do not believe most of these stories are even true. When you get down to the meat and potatoes of the facts it's never quite like the story, much less the headline. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

especially when you combine the secrecy of clandestine operations with the hackery of our mainstream media.

however, THIS might still be overhanging the trump administration and if so, would have contributed to the clusterfuck:

Famously, the Obama administration in May 2013 adopted a set of policy constraints on the use of force for counterterrorism purposes outside zones of “active hostilities.” This Presidential Policy Guidance, known thereafter as “the PPG,” forbade the use of force in circumstances in which collateral damage was foreseeable, even if such harm would have been permissible under the law of armed conflict. My understanding is that the Obama administration always categorized Yemen as a location in which the PPG applied, and I have speculated that President Trump sooner or later will either change that categorization or else repeal this aspect of the PPG outright. And so the question arises: does Sunday’s raid show that one of these things already has happened?

Perhaps. But the reporting suggests that raid planners had hoped the element of surprise (on a moonless night, with helicopter insertion several miles away) would enable the US and UAE personnel to make their way to the target building undetected. It is possible that the planners did consider the PPG standard, but concluded that the “near certainty” standard of the PPG (i.e., near certainty that the attack won’t cause collateral damage) was met (perhaps just barely). As the raid actually developed, of course, the element of surprise was lost early on and a fierce and long-running firefight resulted, including substantial intermixing of AQAP fighters (including female fighters) with local civilians. In such circumstances, it is no surprise at all that civilians died. I just don’t think we can conclude from this that the Trump administration already has jettisoned the PPG.

So here is a question... Considering there is no atmosphere on Mars. The temperature is all wrong. It would seem like hard work to build the sort of self contained structures that would be compatible for human living.

Wouldn't it be much easier to actually build them on this planet, where temperature controls would be easily, you would only have to filter and purify an existing atmosphere instead of creating an atmosphere from scratch?

If we can potentially come up with the technology to live on mars, wouldn't it be reasonable to say we could build better structure to live more purely on this planet?

If we can potentially come up with the technology to live on mars, wouldn't it be reasonable to say we could build better structure to live more purely on this planet?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

we will have destroyed this planet by then. and according to ALS shopping cart guy -

"We’ll be struggling to mitigate the effects of climate change, which means we'll be running out of land to grow crops, our coasts will be disappearing, and anything edible in the sea is probably being cooked by the rapidly rising temperatures."

Wonder what menstral would do since he thinks gays are second rate citizens. As for me, milos is a jackrabbit and this faux outrage of his free speech being impaired is hooey.....The students didn't want him, they won.....free speech all around if you ask me. BTW, punxatuaney phil is the republican answer for scientific discourse......a rat on steroids. LOL

Each year, the UC Berkeley campus receives well over half a billion dollars in research and other support from external sources. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, UC Berkeley attracted $673.9 million in new awards. Many of these awards fund multiyear research projects and support expenditures that will be reflected in subsequent years.

The federal government provided 55 percent of these funds,

and California state agencies and other government sources, industry, and the nonprofit sector supplied the rest. Of the research funding provided by the U.S. government, the largest contributors are the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is resigning from President Donald Trump’s economic advisory council, according to the company.

Kalanick announced the decision in a memo to Uber employees Thursday afternoon, explaining he wanted to distance both himself and the ride-hailing company from the anti-Muslim executive order Trump signed last Friday.

“Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda” Kalanick wrote, in a copy of the memo obtained by The Huffington Post, “but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.”

Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.

Oh please......they overturned a light generator and no building were lost to fire, but there was some damages from vandals. When you come up with a legit link showing a conflagration of a building, let me know..K? Hyperbole, thy name is CH. LOL

Opie - protests are fine. Hold a sign. Do a little chanting. Stand in your crowd with a whole bunch of like minded people and do your thing.

But the minute you start vandalizing property (either public or private) or assaulting people it's no longer "free speech"... it's called rioting and it's criminal behavior. Over the past three or four years we have watched more than one building burnt down, more than one private business ruined, and lord knows how many millions of dollars destroyed in public property, and how many millions of dollars spent on law enforcement.

How many of those riots were started by the dreaded Tea Party or anyone else affiliated with the right? About none?

Perhaps you haven't noticed, Opie... but the Democrats and their liberal movement is sitting at 100 year lows. They have been beaten at every political level from federal to state. The fact that they scream louder, throw more violence temper tantrums, and lash out with more anger... doesn't make them any less of a politically neutered minority.

LANSING, MI – A pro right-to-work rally sponsored by a number of Michigan Tea Party groups turned violent Tuesday, as members of the tea party movement clashed with anti right-to-work activists outside the state capitol building. The rally coincided with the signing by Gov. Rick Snyder of the recently passed Right-to-Work bill that would limit union power in the state of Michigan.

The clash happened shortly after the rally began, as a few hundred right wing activists moved over to a tent sponsored by MoveOn.org, a progressive PAC which is against right-to-work legislation. The tea party group chased the 20 or so progressive activists from the area, andÂ quicklyÂ kicked the tent to the ground. Box cutters were used to slash the tent’s ropes, and to cut swatches asÂ souvenirs, which were passed out to the angry mob.

As the tent was being kicked to the ground, several protesters confronted MSNBC contributor Steven Crowder, who was there filming interviews with the protestors. One right wing activist punchedÂ Crowder as he attempted to defend the tent from being destroyed. The man accused of the assault, Tony Fauxname, was identified 15 minutes after the attack by reporters from ABC, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post, the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, CurrentTV, Headline News, Entertainment Tonight, TMZ, HSN, ESPN, Food Network and Al Jazeera.

After the tent was destroyed and Crowder was assaulted, the angry right wing protestors(mostly white males) turned their attention toÂ Lansing hot dog vendor Clint Tarver. Mr. Tarver, an African-American, was hired by MoveOn.org to provide lunch for their progressive activists. As they hurled racial slurs at Tarver, the Tea Party rioters destroyed his catering equipment. It is unclear at this point if any hate crime charges will be brought against the protesters,Â because Tarver was not physically assaulted.

WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) Political pundits knew health care reform was going to upset critics and the "tea party" contingent, but they probably didn't expect things to get violent.

The Democratic leadership in Congress is decrying recent "acts of violence" against 10 House Democrats and one Republican, including one report of a cut gas line at the house of the brother of one member of Congress.

The most recent report came from US Rep. Harry Mitchell, AZ, whose spokesman, Adam Bozzi, said in a statement that the congressman received physical threats, including threats on his life, both before and after a vote on health care reform.

Sponsor content from NestHow Much Energy Does a Learning Thermostat Really Save?A brick was thrown through the window of the district office of Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in Niagara Falls, in upstate New York, while Bart Stupak, the conservative Democrat whose deal with the White House on abortion funding curbs provided the crucial last few votes for passage of the bill, reported getting calls from people wishing that he "bleed, get cancer and die."

Representative James Clyburn, the highest ranking black lawmaker, said he received a fax with an image of a noose.

Even the families of representatives aren't immune to the backlash, apparently. The Albemarle County Fire Marshal's Office and the FBI have concluded, in a joint statement, that a severed gas line outside of the house of Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-Va.) brother was "an act of vandalism." Perriello supported the overhaul measure and an activist involved in the "tea party" movement reportedly posted the brother's address on an internet forum - apparently thinking it was the congressman's - and urged angry opponents to pay him a visit.

House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, says he knows that people are angry but denounced the disturbing trend, saying, "Threats and violence should not be part of a childish insult"

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. This is a pleasant surprise.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, after promising a radical break with the foreign policy of Barack Obama, is embracing key pillars of the former administration’s strategy, including warning Israel to curb construction of settlements, demanding that Russia withdraw from Crimea and threatening Iran with sanctions for ballistic missile tests.

In the most startling shift, the White House issued an unexpected statement appealing to the Israeli government not to expand the construction of Jewish settlements beyond their current borders in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Such expansion, it said, “may not be helpful in achieving” the goal of peace.

At the United Nations, Ambassador Nikki R. Haley declared that the United States would not lift sanctions against Russia until it stopped destabilizing Ukraine and pulled troops out of Crimea.

On Iran, the administration is preparing a set of economic sanctions that are similar to what the Obama administration imposed just over a year ago. The White House has also shown no indication that it plans to rip up Mr. Obama’s landmark nuclear deal, despite Mr. Trump’s withering criticism of it during the presidential campaign.

He told Israel that new settlements is a bad idea and is keeping the sanctions on Putty Pute. Great news.

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suffer intensely from recurrent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) or rituals (compulsions), which they feel they cannot control. Rituals, such as handwashing, counting, checking or cleaning, are often performed in hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these rituals, however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them increases anxiety. Left untreated, obsessions and the need to perform rituals can take over a person's life. OCD is often a chronic, relapsing illness.Characteristics

Obsessions are thoughts, images or impulses that occur repeatedly. The person does not want to have these ideas, finds them disturbing and intrusive and, usually, recognizes that they really don't make sense. Obsessions are accompanied by uncomfortable feelings, such as fear, disgust or doubt. Common obsessions include contamination fears, imagining having harmed self or others, imagining losing control of aggressive urges, intrusive sexual thoughts or urges, excessive religious or moral doubt, or a need to tell, ask or confess.

People with OCD typically try to make their obsessions go away by performing compulsions. Compulsions are acts the person repeatedly performs, often according to certain “rules.” These rituals are performed to obtain relief from the discomfort caused by the obsessions. Examples of compulsions are washing, repeating, checking, touching, counting, ordering/arranging, hoarding or saving, and praying.

In some instances, a person may suffer from only obsessions or only compulsions.

A feeling of distrust has taken hold in the West Wing of Donald Trump's White House and beyond, as his aides view each other and officials across the federal government and on Capitol Hill with suspicion.

The result has been a stream of leaks flowing from the White House and federal agencies, and an attempt to lock down information and communication channels that could have serious consequences across the government and at the Capitol, where Trump tries to implement and advance his agenda.

In the White House itself, one top aide tried to take the office slated for another aide, Steve Bannon is looking to hire his own PR guru, and the details of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, typically closely held, are suddenly out in the open.

The starkest manifestation of the paranoia has played out with Trump's executive orders, as many key players were left in the dark as the White House forged ahead with sweeping, controversial policies.

While reports have emerged in recent days about various officials blindsided by the orders, interviews with several people involved in the process reveal the extent of the secrecy and chaos. The highly controversial immigration and travel ban signed by Trump last Friday was so tightly held that White House aides, top Cabinet officials, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill and other Trump allies had no idea what was in it even when it was signed — and that was just how top advisers and aides wanted it.

"Someone would have leaked it," one administration official said.

As Trump and his aides try to crack down on the leaks by limiting the information flow inside and outside the White House, there is concern they could go too far.

People with Trumpism hate the leaks, instead of getting worried about the fool they elected.

Washington (CNN)A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he thinks the Russians were involved in election-related hacking of the US -- a very different view than that held by the incoming administration.

Former CIA director James Woolsey, an adviser to Trump on national security issues, told CNN's Jim Sciutto that determining who was behind the hacks is difficult, but that he believes the Russians -- and possibly others -- were involved.

"I think the Russians were in there, but it doesn't mean other people weren't, too," he said. "It's often not foolproof to say who it is because it is possible and sometimes easy to hide your tracks. There's lots of tricks."

Asked if Trump is playing the media with his comments on who was culpable, Woolsey said it was a "possibility," noting that Trump is an "expert in weaving around" on issues like this."Sometimes people may have been talking to somebody in the National Security Agency and have an idea that maybe it was one type of hacking rather than another," he said. "I don't think this is of substantial matter. I think it's basically just dialogue back and forth."

Speaking on Tuesday on CNN's "New Day," Woolsey stressed his belief that more than one country was involved in hacking US Democratic organizations and individuals."Is it Russian? Probably some," the Trump adviser told Chris Cuomo, adding that China and Iran could also have been involved. "It shouldn't be portrayed as one guilty party. It's much more complicated than that."

He added, "This is not an organized an operation ... It's not like taking a number at a bakery and standing in line to politely get your dozen cookies ... it's more like a bunch of jackals at the carcass of an antelope."

Woolsey's comments come even as Trump and his aides continue to cast doubt on the links between Russia and recent hacks against Democrats, while US intelligence officials say that newly identified "digital fingerprints" indicate Moscow was behind the intrusions.

Someone leaked the Yemen raid - AQ was expecting it. The trouble had nothing to do with rash decisions, rushing it or not enough planning. If anything there was too MUCH planning, too much time spent with too many people involved before it went down.

So there were no buildings burned down, or ATM's destroyed as you claimed, and you lecture me on how to riot. You are really amusing, CH! I never said that violence was a good tactic, did I. The hurt themselves by being as naive as you are. Nice try, though.

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